2/04/2006

For sale: one immortal whale soul

LONDON - It used to be a practice confined to pacts with the devil, but now an anonymous vendor in America is offering to sell the soul of the London whale.

The Northern Bottlenosed Whale died two weeks ago after swimming up the River Thames into central London.

"I was accompanying the poor whale in his last journey, and he handed his soul to me. He asked me to sell it, so I could invest the money raised in other bottlenosed whales," said the seller from Minneapolis, giving the whale the wrong gender.

The soul seller describes the proud possession as "100 percent soul" and promises to ship it anywhere in the world.

"This soul will only increase in value in the future," wrote the vendor.

Illustrated with a picture purporting to be of a whale's brain, the only bid registered to date is for just $1.